The Triangle's dominant pay-TV provider reported higher second-quarter profit as its signed up more customers for digital TV, Internet and phone service.
New York-based Time Warner Cable, the country's second-largest cable TV company, reported that it earnings $342 million, up from $316 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 5.8 percent to $4.73 billion.
The company has 12.7 million video subscribers in 28 states. That includes about 2.1 million customers in the Carolinas, including 830,000 in the region from Raleigh to the coast.
Nationwide, it lost 111,000 video subscribers during the quarter, as pay TV rivals such as AT&T and DirecTV continue to steal customers.
But Time Warner Cable added 63,000 home phone customers and 85,000 residential Internet subscribers.
Customers on average paid $72.56 a month for video, up 5.2 percent from the same quarter a year ago.
Internet subscribers paid 3.3 percent more on average in the quarter to $42.88 a month, but phone pricing fell slightly to $38.64.
Assistant Business Editor Alan M. Wolf joined the N&O in 1999 covering the business of health care. He became an editor in 2001, and helps oversee the paper's daily business coverage and Sunday Work&Money section. He lives in Clayton with his wife and two children. Reach him at 919-829-4572 or
Comments
TWC Profits From Not Caring
Thu, 08/05/2010 - 15:57 — ApexRonI am going to replace my TWC cable and internet service with ATT U-Verse next week. Why?
1. TWC has been unable to resolve pixelation on certain channels which is caused by a poor signal and/or data errors.
2. Channels will actually disappear and then several hours later re-appear.
3. The number of available HD channels are fewer than with ATT.
4. No SSL for email, not even HTTPS when reading your mail via a browser.
5. Helpdesk is a joke because they always tell you power cycle all your equipment. Chat help is always telling you to call the help desk. By contrast, I had the occassion to call ATT's helpdesk as well as use their Chat help, asking very technical questions, and each time they were provide an intelligent answer in short order.
Time Warner's biggest problem is that they are stuck with a coax cable infrastructure using mixed technologies. They need to dump the channelization technology and focus only on IPTV at the highest bandwidth.
TWC Crying
Thu, 08/05/2010 - 12:42 — pi_r_roundIt's blatantly obvious now that TWC crying about increasing rates from Disney and the like were just crocodile tears.
Worst customer service EVER
Thu, 08/05/2010 - 10:46 — PowderedToastManOf course they're seing higher profits. They OVERCHARGE, dont spend much on customer service, and still raise rates every year.